Christiane Amanpour underscores the need for gender equality in all aspects of society and specifically in and through media: "From all my experience working in the field for over 20 years now I see more and more women in the field as journalists... What I see is that this is making a big change in the way stories are covered. Women do not report only on women... They report on what now is almost exclusively the human factor when it comes to war, crisis, disaster or even opportunities, hope and challenges... Women still have to face very difficult threats, very difficult situations of abuse, very difficult situations of intimidation and out and out being banned from taking part in the field of journalism. It is still a difficult world... Those of you women around the world who are determined, and no matter what profession you choose, who are determined to make it and battle the odds and make sure that you never hear the word NO, that I think is the hope and the optimism and the opportunity that we can benefit from and that we can put back into society..."

A video prepared by CNN in connection with the UNESCO "Women Make the News" 2013 initiative (WMN) for International Women's Day, to be celebrated on 8 March 2013.